Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-09-24-Speech-2-057"
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"en.20020924.4.2-057"2
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". – Mr President, I should like to thank the Members of Parliament for their interesting speeches – I have learned a lot of new things, including about the equal treatment of the Belgian Queen, and olive growing.
Furthermore, some Member States have one control service, others have several, and difficulties may be identified in some but not in others. However, Amendment 8 requires one control per Member State per year whatever the circumstances: this does not take account of the risks identified and will mean scarce resources also being used on low-risk controls. If Parliament insists on diverting from this professional audit approach, then it would also effectively be requiring the Commission to commit additional budgetary means to recruit the necessary staff.
Finally, the amendment by Mr Cunha aimed at publishing the list of beneficiaries, to which Mr Casaca referred. The Commission promotes openness and transparency but does not think that this is a wise proposal. The programme may be decided up to 12 months before the beginning of some scrutinies, and giving a beneficiary 12 months' notice of a control cannot be good control practice. In any event, Regulation 4045/89 forbids the use of nominative data in this way. I understand that there is also a volume question that has to do with the practicality of giving out some of the information in a meaningful way. That is why this amendment is not acceptable to the Commission.
With regard to the specific case concerning butter, I cannot supply all the details on that. However, I would ask you to send the Commission a written question on this case. We could then update you on what actions have been taken.
We will have to come back to the other more general political questions, because I would like to restrict my comments to the proposal before us.
Mr Casaca was right to express concerns about irregularities. I would like to point out that Regulation 4045/89 scrutiny results in a high number of irregularities being reported to OLAF, and also in the identification of and follow-up to cases, to which Mr Casaca referred. This is very important.
I should like to make clear the Commission position on some of the amendments and I will also try to answer Mr Casaca's four questions.
The first one concerns the legal basis. I have three points to make. Firstly, Regulation 4045/89 is a control regulation and not an anti-fraud regulation. Therefore, Article 37 is the most appropriate legal basis. Secondly, these are technical amendments and there is no justification for making substantive changes at this point. Thirdly, the opinion of Mr Casaca's own committee – the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market – based on the advice of Parliament's Legal Service, was that Article 37 was the most appropriate legal basis. It is very important for all those involved that a distinction is made between control and anti-fraud. That is why the Commission rejects this amendment on the legal basis.
Amendments 2, 3 and 4 expand on or slightly strengthen the existing provisions and are acceptable to the Commission.
Concerning Amendment 5, I have to stress that, as Member States are already required to send the Commission a list of beneficiaries, this part of the amendment is unnecessary. The methods used by the Member States to calculate the minimum number of scrutinies have been checked by Commission services and found to be satisfactory. That is why the Commission rejects this amendment.
We can accept Amendment 6, even though it seems to be superfluous.
Amendment 7 exceeds the nature of a technical amendment, would mark a major change in the relations between Member States and could also have major legal effects. The Commission is not opposed to the amendment in itself but, in view of the legal and political issues, it is a question that needs to be taken up at horizontal level, and that is why the Commission rejects it.
On Amendments 8 and 9, the Committee on Budgetary Control wants Commission staff to carry out a certain number of controls each year, one in each Member State, plus one multinational control. In allocating its control efforts, the Commission makes use of risk analysis. This approach has been demanded and supported by the European Court of Auditors and Parliament. These Amendments 8 and 9 would drastically limit the effectiveness of any risk analysis because of the amount of work that would have to be done every year. DG Agriculture's audit services are responsible for the control of many measures, and to oblige them to carry out all the controls required by these amendments – whether they are high risk or not – is not an acceptable approach."@en1
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